Avengers: World War Widow
by Black' Victor Cachat
Summary: Iron Man shot Bruce into space "for his own good," and to protect the world. Except he also sent Natasha along. Now she's returned, wielding the power of the Hulk, and armed for vengeance against the man she holds responsible for the death of the only man she ever loved. Grieving Brutasha . Part 3/3 of my "Planet Hulk"/"World War Hulk" comic rewrites.


For better or worse, Marvel owns all of this stuff, not me.

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 **Warning, does have spoilers for Planet Hulk and World War Hulk comic storylines.**

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World War Widow

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"N-Natasha…please," Iron Man begged, trapped within his ruined suit of armour amongst the wreckage that had once been New York.

Implacably the Black Widow advanced, though she had now become a stranger to Tony.

Gone was the fierce self-control, and in place of her familiar mask was a rictus of hatred.

And she was green.

In place of her customary cat suit she now wore an oversized suit of black metal armour like a medieval knight, but for her it fit snuggly and she was still as graceful as ever in it, thanks to the transformation she had undergone that had made her body so much larger. At first it had seemed like a joke, until everyone realized it was the only outfit she had that could survive the abuse she was putting it through. The vicious battles she had fought against the Registration forces had left it dented and scarred, with large chunks provocatively torn off, yet her green skin underneath was unmarred.

"You lured us both together to the same place," she raged, "and then you shot Bruce and me into space! To die! But we crashed on an alien world, Sakaar, and we survived. We gathered friends and allies, and we became the world's rulers. But it didn't last." Realizing Romanoff was only repeating what she had broadcasted when she had first returned to Earth in a gigantic alien warship, far larger than even the SHIELD helicarrier, Tony frantically resumed his struggles to escape.

Suddenly three battered Hulkbusters piloted my members of the US Airforce dropped to the ground like metal avalanches around the Black –no, _Green_ Widow. _Great! The irony of that name is just going to set her off even more!_ Tony thought distractedly.

The first two blasted at her from a distance at full power, but even while ranting the woman was always aware of her surroundings and had already been on the move. Gamma enhanced muscles pounding the pavement like an earthquake, she ducked and flipped around their repulsor beams, her acrobatics making her move as fast and as untouchable as the wind as she closed upon the third Hulkbuster who made a suicidal charge at her.

Her lithe figure danced away from the steel fist, and her hands grabbed it to use as a ramp as she twisted her body upwards over the arm as she tucked her legs in, and once she had pivoted enough she shot them forward to slam both feet into the faceplate of the pilot, breaking through with ease and crushing his head. Using the recoil and rolling with her momentum and unique style of lethal Judo, she managed to bring the cumbersome dead weight around so that it acted as a shield between her and the remaining two Hulkbusters.

Both soldiers professionally held their fire, knowing both how durable the suits were, preventing them from quickly shooting through their dead comrade to get at her, and they dared not let there be the slightest distraction with which she could escape from their sight. Most of the Hulkbusters and members of the Registration forces had been assassinated in ambushes at the very beginning of this nightmare without ever seeing who killed them, despite being fully fitted for battle. For those that did survive long enough to take her head-on, they learned what a woman coerced into becoming an assassin from childhood, who had survived in fights against those far more powerful than her when she had just been a normal human, could now do when she had the powers of the Indestructible Hulk.

The only ones of the government 'heroes' that she had not eliminated were those who were now publicly declaring that they had been coerced into joining, or remaining with, Stark's government organization, and that the former Black Widow had rescued or neutralized their individual 'incentives.'

No, the pilots knew that if they committed themselves to attacking without a clear shot, she would just vanish like a shadow. Again.

"Can your suit fly?" one asked his teammate, hoping that they could spread out some more to cover her despite the broken buildings and rubble that surrounded them.

"No, too damaged. Getting here burned out what was left of the thrusters. Out of missiles too."

"Same here," was the nervous response.

 **XXX**

Peter Parker gently lowered his aunt and girlfriend down to the ground, who appeared to be fine despite 'being kept safe' by the government (read: confined without cause), and paused to tinker with the mask of his advanced "Iron Spider" suit. Ant-Man and Wasp jumped off Peter's shoulders and resumed their normal size, helping to free the teenager's family, just like the Black Widow had done the same for them.

"What's wrong?" Mary Jane Watson asked, not taking her eyes off of the distant, tortured battlefield that was New York, which was now ominously silent after all of the explosions and flashes of light that had been emanating from it for so long.

"Trying to readjust the radio," Peter answered, doing his best to appear completely disinterested in whatever was going on back in his former hometown. "I'm still getting the channel Tony's people've been using, but I want to filter some of it out."

"Have they been saying anything important," Aunt May asked as she watched for any signs that the boy she had raised as a son was trying to protect her or MJ from any discomforting news.

"Not really, although a bunch of people kept ranting about 'It's just one woman! It's just one woman!' and such. Guys really need to get with the twenty-first century."

Knowing that the bad joke was just Peter's way of trying to cope with all the day's events, both women just nodded and waited for the reborn Spider-Man to continue getting them to safety, while Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne held each other's hands to reassure themselves that they were both still there.

 **XXX**

A fourth Hulkbuster suddenly landed beside Tony Stark, and for a moment the man thought that Rhodey, a.k.a. War Machine had come to save him, but then he bitterly remembered that his best friend was also dead. His only comfort was that Romanoff had made a deliberate point of sparing Pepper, yet even then Stark knew that the assassin had made a point of emphasizing how she could have killed the woman Iron Man loved. "Sir," the woman in the suit said desperately, "we've got to get you out of here!"

"Can't," Stark bit out. "Stuck in here!"

Gently, the behemoth suit of armour worked to pry him out, before suddenly snapping her head back to look where the Green Widow had been crouching behind the defeated third Hulkbuster, "Sir! I'm getting weird readings from over there!"

Cursing at how his own readout was destroyed, and that FRIDAY had been one of the first fatalities, Stark was about to demand she tell him more concrete details, when suddenly he realized what his ex-teammate must be planning. "Oh no—"

The 'dead' Hulkbuster suit's arms suddenly snapped up and opened fire upon the other two sets of armour that were covering it, throwing them off balance. Like lightning Romanoff dashed from behind her cover and disappeared amongst the deserted buildings of New York. Over the radios, she continued speaking. "And then, Tony Stark, Bruce's 'Science Bro,' you sent a bomb. Killed a million people. Including Bruce and the Hulk. But they shielded me from it, and they both took this one last step to keep me safe."

 **Knowing that this was the least of what that woman was capable of, while lying against the side of a sophisticated suit of armour like the Hulkbuster, with fingers that could pull back the metal casings, and technical skills that could hack through and manipulate anything he could build, Iron Man shouted for the soldiers to run.**

 **Too late.**

 **The eleven arc reactors that powered the downed Hulkbuster went critical, releasing an explosion and electrical shockwave that killed everyone within two hundred meters of the blast sight.**

 **XXX**

 **Natasha Romanoff let out a light breath, and then continued onwards. She knew that Stark had not sent any bomb to Earth, since she had already figured out that one of Sakaar's natives was responsible for the explosion before she had left for Earth. She lost none of her investigative skills after all, or her ability to compartmentalize her emotions when necessary.**

 **But Stark had still betrayed her and Bruce, sent them off to a hellhole where even the Hulk had struggled to stay alive. And he was the one who was responsible for the damaged spaceship that some vengeful loyalists of the Red King that Bruce and her had deposed had weaponized.** ** _All those_** **children** ** _!_** **she thought with anguish, fighting back the tears with long practice, yet also struggling to not close herself off, fighting to remain the woman whose heart Bruce had opened up, finishing the work Clint and his family had begun.**

 **With visible effort, she returned her attention to the present.** ** _Civilian casualties should be null, given how I broadcasted my intent to fight it out with Tony in New York_** **, she concluded as she threaded her away amongst debris, staying out of sight, while confident that her comrades were keeping the satellites down from the spaceship Bruce and her had seized during the war. Those same friends had also been the ones to send that message to the world, making it look like it was a live transmission instead of a recording while their queen had already infiltrated the planet days ahead of them.**

 **She had just shot out of the spaceship to float through space towards the Earth with an oxygen tank, and made a crash landing into the Atlantic Ocean from orbit. It was not as if the fall could kill her now after all, and the torture she had endured during training and previous missions made her more than qualified to supress the pain as she burned through the atmosphere and then smashed down into the hard water below. Nor did she now lack the muscles to swim to shore and get things in order before her friends arrived to set things in motion and bring her a suit of armour to wear.**

 ** _My only regret in all this is that Pepper's now feeling the pain I do, but I won't kill her for being associated with Stark. And she was a friend before all this. For now though, it's time to go find Steve, so that I can help him finish his fight for human rights for the empowered, and so that I can find the government officials who pushed Stark into sending us into space. Then, and only then, can I return home to Sakaar. Clint and Laura and the kids should already be safely on the ship_** **.**

 **None of this would bring Bruce back, yet it would keep others from suffering the same fate as her, and Tony Stark needed to be stopped before he tried to "help" anyone else.**

 ** _With this new body, I now have eternity to wipe the red clean off my ledger; a gift from Bruce, my beloved, and a curse from Stark._**

 **XXX**

 **Author Notes:**

 **The funny thing here is how MCU Tony Stark is actually one of my favourite characters! :-D**

 **Mass production of Iron Man suits for the military also seems to me like a step that will be taken in the Civil War, or at least asked of Stark to prove his dedication. Basically outfitting normal men to counter the abilities of the empowered.**

 **In case anyone is curious why I focused more on Red King loyalist involvement over Hulk's Warbound companion, Miek, being guilty, I decided to just omit him because Bruce and Natasha would never have encouraged the guy towards a personal philosophy of "Never stop making them pay," especially since with Natasha there the Hulk would not be the dominant personality since she could bring Bruce back out.**

 **This is inspired by one possible storyline for my main Avengers fic for baby Laura Fury Romanoff-Banner, in which the Civil War continues years into the future, and Laura is just trying to live her own life when "Uncle" Tony and his forces find her. In that timeline, while not born with her father's corrupted DNA, she did manage to replicate the Hulk process. No idea if that will actually happen or not, since the story is still evolving. Trick of course would be keeping her from becoming a Mary Sue. No matter, lots of time to think about it :-)**

 **Plan to be getting back to my main Brutasha fic again soon.**

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To Lilyarosa: Thank you so much for your reviews, and hoping you will read this one too!

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 **Please Review and I will get back to you!**


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